The Opera team has released version 10.10 of their feature-rich browser. This is the first Opera release to come with Opera Unite, which combines the web browser with a web server, so that users can share data directly between one another, without the need for a third party.

... that Unite is nothing new, or that you can install servers yourself (uh hu) or use Facebook.

No normal Joe will do the first, and secondly Facebook or whatever else are single implementations of specific ideas. Both miss the point that Unite is a platform that doesn't require tech knowledge to install and is a green field waiting for innovative ideas to fill it.

The single best Unite App that I've found is one I found last night which has nothing to do with sharing of any type for instance. It's the UJS Manager ( http://unite.opera.com/application/401 ) which I've got sitting in a panel in my Opera install which lets me manage my UserJS stuff, turning on or off each script independantly, editing, adding, deleting them. Great stuff and fantastic off the wall thinking to use Unite for something that manages the browser experience itself.

I've used The Lounge a few times, first time was when MSN went down while a mate and I were chatting. I emailed him my Lounge link and we kept on going in there. Handy and a zero install useful little toy.

I had some photos of a holiday I wanted to send to my brother. I could have used dropbox (install, get him to install, link, etc etc) but instead used the photo sharing with a password in Unite and pointed him to the url. Saved me hassle: installing a sharing app, or physically uploading the hundreds of photos and securing the sharing so only those I nominate could access. Saved him hassle: he just visited a url, tapped in the password and grabbed what he wanted.

That is by-the-way though. Unite is not a server or a function but a platform or framework (man I hate that overused term). Yes, so far you could use Facebook or Photobucket or whatever else for many of the applications but those are just the first tentative ideas implemented in it so far. The UserJS manager is a clear sign of just how limited those ideas are by how off the wall it is.

Firstly, what do you think the web is? It's a big scary place where people either wander into the badlands unexpectedly or the badlands find them.

You might as well say the same thing about *ANYTHING* on the internet.

Facebook, Dropbox, IRC, MSN, Email, whatever you name can be bad.

That is why it is unfortunately nearly 100% necessary to have anti-malware software (or sense) of some type on any machine that connects to any other, no matter how. (Be that directly or via physically transferred data)

Seriously, is spouting crap like that the best use of those who seemingly hate Opera for not being F/OSS/Firefox/Chrome's time?